


Not So Bad

by throwntotheair (eloquentelegance)



Series: Autistic Damian Wayne [3]
Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Autism, Damian Wayne has Autism, Gen, Kidfic, Tim Drake has ADHD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-07-18 16:42:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7322929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eloquentelegance/pseuds/throwntotheair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not easy living with Damian.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not So Bad

**Author's Note:**

> Civilian AU where the Batfam is together earlier

Tim didn’t really like Damian. His mama dropped him off at the manor about six months ago. And he hasn’t stopped crying since. Tim tried to pick him up once, just once. It was a mistake he is never ever going to repeat. He got his hands on the little monster and got bit. He started bleeding, honest he did. Bruce didn’t believe him. Bruce got mad at Jason for leaving him alone with the baby. Jason got mad at him for causing trouble.

It’s not like Damian is even a baby! He’s like two years old! He can crawl and walk and say a few words. But mostly he cries, all the time, on and on and on. Some days, it starts out okay. Damian is happy and quiet. Then, out of nowhere, he’ll start throwing a fit. He’ll kick his feet and thump his fists and fling stuff at people. 

Alfred says he’s got to be patient, because Damian’s got something called “autism”. It means his brain is wired weird. And what feels okay for everybody else, feels awful to him. Or something. Tim tries to understand, he does. But Damian is just - he’s mean and noisy and everyone’s always so busy with him.

It’s gotten a little better now. Cass is godsent because she got it into her head to teach the little monster hand language. Why she thought that, Tim doesn’t know. But it makes Damian less shouty, so okay. It’s still a bumpy ride. And it’s a hard to take him anywhere.

Damian likes to make lots of noises, not like he’s trying to say stuff, just like to make sounds. Loud sounds too. Tim sees the way people look at them funny when Damian just starts making these noises. It makes Tim wanna run somewhere far away. 

And Damian hates clothes, a lot. Something about his skin?? So, bringing him places is hard. Because sometimes, he’ll just start stripping off his clothes. Or he likes to wander off. If he gets bored or something, he just walks away. So, maybe five minutes into a grocery run, they’re short one monster, and they find him at the far end of the store, butt naked. It’s happened like twice now. The grownups around them click their tongues and whisper real nasty stuff. 

Tim hates that. So much.

Now, there’s this. It was Parent-Teacher night in his school. He’s in the 3rd grade now. It’s pretty neat. But he’s not… He’s not doing so good. He sits and he looks at the board and he tries to focus. But his stupid brain keeps thinking about other things like Alfred’s lasagna or the next episode of Mythbusters or how to do a kickflip. He doesn’t mean to think these things, honest. He just - He can’t help it.

Reading’s not much better either. He can read something and then forget about it in the next five seconds. He ends up reading the same sentence over and over again. It’s a pain to get through his assignments. He ended up turning his last report two weeks late. It wasn’t even a very good report. It lacked something called “coherency”. Whatever that was.

They just got finished talking to his teacher. Bruce got a little pinch in the corner of his mouth. It means he’s thinking real hard. Tim doesn’t know what it means for him, but his stomach is trying to burst out his belly button. Then Alfred jogs up to them, and he’s got a super blank face.

“I’ve lost track of Master Damian,” he says.

So, here Tim is, looking for the annoying little monster. They decided to split up. It’s okay this time because it’s Tim’s school. He knows it like the back of his hand. They tell him to meet them at the lobby in fifteen minutes. Tim’s not really looking. He figures Bruce or Alfred will find the monster. But, somehow, he does find Damian. It’s not hard once he heard the shrieking. 

Damian’s in the playground, just outside the parking lot. He doesn’t have a shirt on, because of course, he doesn’t. It’s in the hands of two kids, two big kids. Tim knows those kids. They’re his classmates. They snicker every time Tim gets called on and the teacher has to repeat the question 3 times before he answers. They call him mean names in recess like “retard” or “idiot” or “dumbass”. Now, they’ve got Damian’s tshirt and they’re holding it over their heads, keeping it away from him.

Damian jumps up and down, trying to grab it. He’s screeching a lot too, high-pitched wordless noises that Tim hates. Then, one of the kids decide it’d be funny to push Damian. So, he does. Damian’s still not good at standing sometimes. So, he falls.

Damian’s shirtless. The ground below him is gravel. He’s gonna get really hurt. Tim doesn’t really think too much. He just goes. He runs forward and he dives to catch Damian, like the pro-baseball players on TV. There’s a heavy thump and suddenly, his arms are full with a shocked, tiny monster.

Distantly, he feels a sharp stinging  on his elbows. He looks down and finds long gashes, and blood. He’s bleeding. A lot. The big kids see the blood too. They freak out, backing away quick. They wave their hands in front of them saying, “It wasn’t us! We didn’t do anything!” Before they run off, probably to find their moms.

Tim watches them go. He thinks he’s a little out of it, He knows his elbows hurt. He can feel it. But he’s thinking more about how those kids were a pair of ninnies. It’s a just a bit of blood, honestly. There’s nothing to be scared about.

Damian starts wriggling in his arms. The little monster gets to his sneakered feet and squats down. He squints at Tim’s elbows and Tim supposes that’s a little adorable, if you liked that sort of thing.

Damian moves his hands. Tim recognizes the sign for “ouchie.”

Tim nods his head. “Yeah. But it’s no big deal. Really.”

Damian makes one of his weird noises, a soft “tt” sound. Then, he gets up and toddles over to his shirt, left behind by the big kids. Bringing it over, he presses it on Tim’s elbows.

“Oh,” Tim says, and because Alfred taught him well, he tells Damian, “Thank you.”

Damian frowns a little harder. He looks like Bruce this way, when Bruce is thinking hard. Damian looks back at Tim’s elbows and, in a move he learned from Cass, he uses his free hand to make the “fly” sign.

“Boo boo fly way,” he says, very seriously.

And yeah okay. Tim smiles. The little monster is adorable. He reaches over and ruffles Damian’s hair. And he doesn’t get bit this time. A miracle!

“Yeah,” he says. “Boo boo fly away.”


End file.
